It has been a week of bewilderment for many American taxpayers. The GOP’s recent rush job to cut taxes for corporations and some regular folk also eliminated or capped many cherished tax breaks. That led to a lot of head-scratching in California and elsewhere, as citizens tried to figure out whether there was a way to lessen the pain to come from losing their all-important deduction for local and state taxes.

News reports were confused or downright wrong. Pundits contradicted each other. Political leaders in some affected states promised people they could pay their 2018 property tax and deduct it from their 2017 taxes, while the IRS said the opposite. And buzzing in the background of it all were countless phone calls between friends, emails among colleagues and frantic strategizing with beleaguered tax advisors.

In response to our stories that sought to help you through the confusion, readers were all over the map, from the cynical to the confounded to the instant experts offering up their advice to everyone else.

Here are some of their comments:

First, Gilmore Tuttle weighed in with a criticism of our description of the new tax scheme, where we wrote: “The rule will disproportionately affect higher-tax and traditionally Democratic states such as California and New Jersey.”

Tuttle wasn’t having it.

“This is such a silly and misleading observation,’traditionally Democratic states.’ There were PLENTY of Trump voters in California. In fact Trump received more votes in California [4.48M] than the bottom TEN so-called “red” states combined. That’s Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, West Virginia, Utah, Kansas, and Arkansas [3.83M total]. Throw in the next state, Mississippi, and the total barely tops 4.5M – roughly the same as CA. In fact Trump got more CA votes than any other states apart from TX and FL, and even those states had fewer than 4.7M Trump voters, not very many more than California. And Jersey has a Republican governor so to assume all the NJ voters are ” traditionally Democratic” is bogus too. The rule impacts states with high taxes, period – and all contain a mix of Democrats, Republicans, and independents.”

Then, it was off to the races.

“Prediction: with taxes going down for most people, politicians will work to steal that savings from the people by raising local taxes,” wrote Jerry Bennett. “That’s what those crooks in Illinois did a few years ago when fed taxes were lowered. Progressivism sux.”

Reader Mattie Cooper, however, had a different take on the new plan.

“Well, after the republican Bank Robbery that we all witnessed, it’s not going to be good for the working people. Promoted as a middle-class tax cut, it is a giveaway to corporations—cutting their tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, with a 14 percent boost in earnings to the seven largest banks who pimped you with that subprime mortgage. And this is a giveaway to the wealthiest 1 percent, who enjoy 83 percent of the gains at the expense of everyone else. The tax cut is projected to add $1.46 trillion to the national debt over a decade.”

Patrick Mrowczynski responded to Cooper’s comments thusly: “So the middle class didn’t see taxes cut? I looked at a few calculators (e.g. WSJ and NYT) and they’re actually showing tax cuts for the middle class. Is the issue that other people are getting tax cuts as well?”

A reader called (probably not their real name) “Fake news Trumped real news” shared this tidbit from “the Joint Committee on Taxation (page 5),” located at https://www.jct.gov/publica: “Everyone making less than 100K a year will be paying higher taxes in 2027 under this tax plan than they’re currently paying. Meanwhile, the ‘swamp draining’ Republicans gave big corporations permanent tax cuts. Why is that? Why didn’t they make tax cuts permanent for those making under 100K? Also, 100% of the benefit cuts under the tax bill will be probably be going to those making under 100K.”

There was this interpretation of the bill from Bob Williams: “Thanks because states that get federal moolah will get less, and instead of spending less, they stick it to their local taxpayers.”

And then, after a long discussion among readers about the tax implications for people living in Oregon versus those living in California, we had this breakdown of the bigger picture, once again from Williams:

“You are correct. None of the proposed tax cuts make sense given our 600 billion in deficits. A fair tax reform should have started with getting us who make below 450k to let our taxes rise to a time when the government was running a surplus – that means eliminating all the Bush tax cuts that were permanently extended under Obama in 2012 and 2014.

“We should have broadened the estate tax base by eliminating the tax exemption on estate taxes and eliminating the stepped up cost basis for appreciated capital assets. And instead of a period as long as 15 years to pay the estate and/or inheritance tax, make it all due by by Dec 31st of the calendar year following the donation of the asset or the inheritance.”

Patrick May is an award-winning writer for the Bay Area News Group working with the business desk as a general assignment reporter. Over his 34 years in daily newspapers, he has traveled overseas and around the nation, covering wars and natural disasters, writing both breaking news stories and human-interest features. He has won numerous national and regional writing awards during his years as a reporter, 17 of them spent at the Miami Herald.

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